WoW Forums -> PvE-to-PvP Paid Character Transfers Now Open

All I can say is, it's about damn time.

Finally. /applaud Blizzard. Been a long time coming.

Maybe the bleeding will finally stop.

It also opens up the opportunity for people currently on PvP servers looking for new guilds. This should help some of the population issues on PvE servers.

This will make recruiting for raiding guilds on PvE servers much easier, so I too applaud. I just can't help but feel a twinge of grief for Sebudai and the Juggernaut crew, who just rerolled (and cruised through the entire raiding game in 2 months) Mal'Ganis. On the other hand, from all the posts on the Juggernaut II guild page, it looked like the reroll experience was pretty fun for them overall.

We should really be thanking them for the bang up job, as I have a hard time believing that their departure and incredible success on Mal'ganis wasn't part of the catalyst for this decision.

I wonder what prompted this reversal in policy. More money? Maybe they saw that PvE server population really was going down?

Edit: Replied to wrong thread.

Death Knights.

A player who had levelled on a PvE server could create a level 55 PvP DK with no repercussions.

That having been said, it's sad they couldn't have done this over a year ago when the raiding imbalance started to rear its head.

If it was for money they would've done this a long time ago.

I doubt that's the reason. They could easily change the requirements for creating a Death Knight (i.e. you can only create a DK on a pvp server if you have unlocked it with a PvP server character; or simply, if you have a level 70 on a PvP server).

I would be interested to know just how many unsolicited PvE-server applications EJ suddenly recieves in the next week or so. It would be a useful barometer of how much impact it has to the segment of the server population most relevant to us. I expect the PvP -> PvE transfers will pick up, but not for a while and not by as much.

Finally. The damage has been done however and it will most likely take long time for PvE servers to recover.

As for reason I think it was done because of... lake wintergrasp. Who knows what evolve from this idea and what we will see in next expansions. They cannot however go there with PvE servers being imbalance horror.

I suspect the problem was exactly the reverse: Lots of dead PvP servers, lots of queue times on PvE servers. Prior to this announcement, at any rate, all PvE servers were High Pop (at least at peak times), and there are many medium-low pop PvP servers. This seems like an attempt to organically fix that.

I agree with those above that says this will make recruitment a ton easier. People transfer off PVP servers to PVE/RP servers and then they are stuck. A flood of guilds will transfer to PVP servers which is fine with me. It'll allow people like myself to recruit and bring in folks and if they want to go back to PVP servers they can.


It's the best of both worlds.

You may be Correct. One of my friends tried to transfer his Druid from medium Population PvE server to a high population PvP server and got a message that only PvE transfers from High Population realms were allowed.

To a certain extent, I do. I've done both, and they are very different experiences.

However, perhaps by inclination or random chance*, the fact is that PvP servers ended up with better PvE guilds. And that imbalance has ended up outweighing the difference in levelling. If things had turned out differently, if the best PvE guilds were found on PvE servers or evenly spread, then I think the restriction should have been preserved.

*Probably inclination, Achiever/Killers tend to be the best players.

There was a time when growning up on a pvp server particually one like mal'ganis was very different than a pve server.
Durring that time it would have been unfair to allow those transfers, the difference does not seem as significant any longer.

Warhammer

While I agree that it will help guilds with recruiting, I have to wonder what kind of people are you going to be recruiting? Having played quite some time on both PvE and PvP servers I noticed considerable difference in both mentality and skill. Plus it allows someone to level on PvE then transfer to PvP and go around ganking lowbies, while they themselves couldn't be ganked in the safety of PvE realm. In my opinion, that is the biggest injustice.

Even though it is quite convenient for me as I have couple of 70s on PvE which I can transfer around now, truth be told, I don't think it's completely fair.

What's in it for Blizzard? Definitely more money.

I would wager that their first step in testing the PvE --> PvP transfer waters was when the Dreadmaul server opened up and the vast majority of alliance transferred off the already horde-heavy oceanic PvP server Thaurissan. As the horde:alliance activity ratio was at one point a staggering 40:1 according to Warcraft Realms, and all the other oceanic PvP servers were already horde heavy (ranging from 1.2:1 to 2.3:1 as of July 2008), they took the (previously unheard of) step of allowing alliance-only transfers from three alliance-heavy Oceanic PvE servers.

Once Blizzard realized they could do that without significant player backlash (and indeed, many were asking for the same to be done for their dying servers) it was obvious to most of the Thaurissan community that there would be game wide PvE --> PvP transfers by the release of wotlk.

As a brief aside: Thaurissan is currently hovering around a 3.5:1 horde:alliance ratio, thanks in part to these transfers.

Like someone already said the biggest reason in this policy change in Warhammer online, they want to keep people interested into the game (hence why you can start downloading the 3.02 patch a week before warhammer release? )